Ensuring student success is one of the most important and daunting challenges of modern education. Despite decades of refinements made in the delivery of curriculum, learning strategies, and individualized assessment, there still seems to be no guarantee that students will be able retain what they’ve been taught, meet their educational requirements, and go on to graduate.
Towards this end, Ellucian has come together with HeroX to launch the Ellucian Student Success Challenge. As one of the leading providers of educational software, strategies and analytics to higher education, Ellucian has over 40 years of experience and currently works with over 2,400 institutions in 40 countries across the globe.
With a prize purse of $50,000, the goal of the ESSC was to inspire people to come up with new and creative ways to address three specific issues pertaining to education. These are retention, completion, and graduation rates – three factors that have a deterministic effect on the time it takes to complete a degree at an institution.
The ESSC's three focuses are on retention, completion and graduation rates. Credit: ellucian.com
Ultimately, the Challenge seeks to create a source for best practices that can help institutions to consider new approaches for fostering student success. Serving as a sort of exemplar which teachers can access, this source will also help to foster a conversation about educational strategies and challenges in the 21st century.
Participation in the Challenge, which ran from Oct. 6th to 31st, was open to employees of any current Ellucian customer institution, as well as anyone in the general public who was over 13 years of age and who met the guidlines (as defined in the Individual Challenge-Specific Agreement) and did not present a conflict of interest.
Those submissions that were considered were those that demonstrated an ability to engage and analyze the factors that determine student success at particular institutions. Also, they were expected to propose solutions for how institutions could improve student performance and their enjoyment of the educational experience, as well as address the ways in which this was being impeded.
Ellucian provides higher education software, services, and analytics to 2,400 institutions in 40 countries. Credit: ellucian.com
Lastly, submissions were considered that could demonstrate how an institution would use Ellucian software, services, or both in these efforts. Each entry was provide five challenge questions, and al entrants were encouraged to provide additional content to supplement their challenge entries (via a URL, external link, etc.)
Once a winner is selected, the prizes - which include a First Place prize of $15,000, a Second Place of prize of $7,000, and a third Third Place prize of $3,000 - will be awarded. 10 honorable mention awards of $2,500 in credits will also be made available towards Ellucian Professional Services engagements.
The challenge is now in the Judging Stage, and a winner is expected to be announced shortly. In the meantime, be sure to check out this video of Michael Betz, Ellucian's CMO, speaking at Ellucian Live 2014:
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